I got irrationally mad yesterday after reading this pretty funny thread from author Geraldine.
Here’s the thread. Enjoy it now because she seems like a good time, but I’m about to ruin it:
The Joker should have been a woman. And she finally went insane because too many random dudes told her to smile, so now she perpetually smiles while terrorizing Gotham.
— Geraldine (@everywhereist) June 1, 2019
She was such a good time to me that I went to her website to check out her book (from 2017) which looks awesome by the cover. I’m a sucker for a good book cover.
And right there on the front page of her website it says:
“I wrote a book about getting lost and finding yourself and also peeing on things when you are angry. If you liked Twilight, you will probably hate my book.”
And I got pissed. Irrationally pissed for a beautiful Sunday morning over coffee. Yeah, being a Twilight fan has meant years of people saying shitty things about us, but this girl seemed cool. She won a James Beard award for this essay she wrote about Mario Batali’s #MeToo Apology letter. But it turns out she’s just part of the crowd who thinks it’s funny to hate on Twilight and its fans. And that’s just NOT COOL.
So Geralidine, I want to tell you about the awesome women who “loved Twilight and would probably love YOUR book” (assuming it’s not an entire diatribe dedicated to why Twilight sucks.)
BETH
This is Beth. She’s is, according to Twitter, the proud sponsor of two little women. She’s also a democrat in a red “fly over” state who questions the Church she was raised in, writes hilarious things on the internet, is working on her first novel and loves Twilight, feminist literature, Star Wars and has an English Lit degree (I’m 99% sure). We met because of Twilight and she’s one of my dearest friends.
LAURA
Meet Laura. She loves dogs, CBD, her kid and husband, she’s tattooed everywhere, and she said to me “literally all my best friends I know from Twilight.”
NIKKI
Nikki is my business partner, dear friend and is equally passionate about social justice AND Justin Timberlake. She’s an aunt to two amazing humans, loves live music, discovering new places to eat in LA and weekly trips to Disneyland. I knew her before Twilight, but together Twilight changed our lives, launched our business and gave us the lives we have today.
ME
Hi this is me. I’m 35 years old which is something I’m putting in writing because tomorrow I won’t be 35 years old. I’m a former Evangelical, divorcee who is the proud oldest sister of 3 fiercely independent, strong-willed, feminist girls. I love being one of these 4 Little Women so much that every tattoo I’ve put on my body is in 4s. I discovered Twilight in 2008 and when I tell you my life hasn’t been the same since, I mean it. I will defend Twilight till the day I die. Which will probably be later today since I will never be older than 35.
TRACI
Great Thrifting Find, or Greatest Thrifting Find Ever? #TwitterPoll#HolidayShopping#IFeelSeen pic.twitter.com/anUQm9fMUo
— (ง •̀_•́)ง Booth 2532 at BookCon! (@tracitalynne) December 20, 2018
This is Traci. I know Traci from Twilight. When I thought to myself, “write about the women you know and love from Twilight” I thought of Traci first. Mostly because I owe her an email. But Traci is AWESOME. And all you need to know is that she has a strong bang, hipster glasses, tattoos and works in publishing. There’s a picture of Traci in the dictionary next to feminist (probably).
CHRISTINA LAUREN
This author duo writes sexy romance novels and fiction with strong female characters. They got their start writing…TWILIGHT FAN FICTION. Ew Gross.
Just kidding, that’s not gross at all. Here is an article The Atlantic wrote about them.
PS I was friends with them before there were lines to say hi to them.
MARAH
Marah is one of my longest Twilight friends. She’s an editor at The AV Club. She recently produced the most adorable two humans EVER out of her body and she produced a piece a few years back about how Twilight transformed the small logging town of Forks, Washington.
It does’t matter how many celebrities Marah interviews (and she interviews all of them), nothing excites her more than getting a pr pitch from the publicist of a C-list Twilight star.
There are so many amazing women I could write about, and guess what – we’re all Twilight fans. And we all probably would have liked your book.
It’s not just you, and it’s not just Twilight. Here’s a fun game: Replace “Twilight” with other words and see how many more people we can piss off:
“If you like romance novels you probably won’t like my book”
Here is a list of 12,000 amazing feminists obsessed with romance novels who also would have probably liked your book.
“If you like Outlander you probably won’t like my book”
Yeah cause women who like books featuring strong female protagonists definitely wouldn’t be your readers. Here’s my rolodex filled with thousands of names of Outlander Fans (all named Barb) who are feminists.
√ Just because someone loves Twilight doesn’t mean she doesn’t love feminist literature.
√ Just because someone doesn’t read feminist literature doesn’t mean she isn’t a true feminist.
√ Just because someone reads something you don’t get or enjoy, doesn’t mean she’s less than you.
Let’s do better women. And let us fucking stop talking DOWN to Twilight fans. It’s been 14 years. WE ARE OVER IT.
Let us love what we love. You are not cooler for making fun of it.
(Told you I got mad)
